In 1992, Shelly Moore, against Texas law, left her infant daughter Shannon unattended in a car. “In a deposition in 1996, Moore acknowledged that she had been using a faulty lighter that at times continued to flame after she lighted a cigarette and had to be blown out. Several witnesses testified in depositions that Moore told them she thought she had lighted a cigarette as she left the car, then absent-mindedly tossed the lighter on the seat.” The car burst into flames, and Shannon was horrifically burned, eventually losing all of her fingers and her hearing.

Moore and her daughter moved to Johnson County, Texas, a notoriously plaintiff-friendly region, and Shannon sued…Philip Morris, who made the Marlboro 100s Shelly smoked. (Shannon named her mother as a codefendant; where one named plaintiff and one named defendant are citizens of the same state, a defendant is unable to remove the case to federal court on diversity jurisdictional grounds.) The claim was that a smoldering cigarette caused a fire, and Shannon’s injuries were the tobacco company’s fault for failing to design a cigarette that would not stop burning. Rather than risk putting the case in front of a jury that would be exposed to photos of Shannon’s terrible burns, Philip Morris settled for $2 million. Fifteen previous cases alleging product liability over cigarette fires had been dismissed before trial. (Myron Levin, “Tobacco Giant, in a Shift, Pays Victim”, L.A. Times, Oct. 2). More on case: J. R. Labbe, “Somebody has to pay”, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Oct. 5.

Filed under: personal responsibility, tobacco